The Wood Report: NAU vs. BYU Projected Ahead of Regionals

It’s been a whirling of a cross country season thus far. I wrote last week that we are set for one of the greatest showdowns at the NCAA Cross Country National Championships.

For more information regarding, the process of how I come to decide these ratings, please check out last month’s introductory post. Below you’ll see my rankings for each of the 31 teams competing at nationals. These are the 31 teams that will compete at nationals. It’s not necessarily the best 31 teams in the country. Due to injuries or shortcomings at certain meets, sometimes we see cases of teams that are very good but don’t make it to the big dance. It happens.

If you have any questions or complaints, tweet them at me: @Wood_Report

Here are the official Wood Report rankings after Pre-Nats and Wisconsin:

Place

Team

Points

1

Northern Arizona

100

2

BYU

102

3

Arkansas

157

4

Syracuse

162

5

Oregon

255

6

Colorado

259

7

Portland

266

8

Stanford

279

9

Furman

308

10

Virginia Tech

360

11

Southern Utah

361

12

Oklahoma State

377

13

Colorado State

400

14

Alabama

427

15

Michigan State

433

16

UCLA

447

17

Ole Miss

451

18

Iona

466

19

Washington

470

20

Texas

522

21

Michigan

547

22

Air Force

559

23

Iowa State

569

24

Washington State

570

25

Eastern Kentucky

575

26

Utah State

595

27

Virginia

597

28

Minnesota

637

29

North Carolina State

648

30

Princeton

651

31

Georgetown

758

That’s right. This time, we’ve included BYU in the rankings because there’s no denying that they will be a contender for the national title. How did we come about these scores? We will be releasing the individual projections tomorrow.

If we take a look at the previous rankings, here are a couple observations:

Arkansas moved from No. 1 to No. 3 but we mentioned in last week’s column that the stars just haven’t aligned for the Razorbacks yet. The talent is there. They could just be bluffing until they get to the national championship.

Syracuse moved from No. 2 to No. 4 but that may just have to do with realizing just how good NAU is and including BYU in the rankings. We initially omitted them because of my BYU ties.

Wisconsin went from being ranked No. 7 to missing the top 31. That’s kind of what happens when a stud like Morgan McDonald redshirts.

Portland makes a big jump from No. 18 to No. 7 and that has a lot to do with their breakout performance at the Wisconsin Invitational.

Just five of my preseason teams are now out of the picture for NCAAs. We already mentioned Wisconsin. The other four teams are Boise State (previously no. 12), Indiana (I said I should not have included them in the first column), FSU (previously No. 21), Cal (previously No. 22) and Tulsa (previously No. 29). We’re not perfect.

The team that took the biggest fall but stayed in the rankings was Virginia, which went from No. 14 to No. 27 after a bad say at Wisconsin.

Sorry to my guys at Georgetown (including Spencer Brown), who read this. I’ve got Georgetown in last for Natty’s. For now. Keep grinding.

We will have a full column of insight and analysis into these rankings tomorrow so stay tuned to CitiusMag.com and fire away with questions or complaints to @Wood_Report on Twitter.